DeMaurice Smith, NFLPA head
NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith has written to Roger Goodell asking the NFL commissioner to reopen the investigation of the New Orleans Saints’bounty program.
In an interview with Pro Football Talk Live, Smith said he intended to talk to Goodell and would point out areas of the investigation that he believes failed, in addition to particulars that he says the league should re-examine.
“Frankly, I believe that the investigators let the commissioner down,” Smith told Pro Football Talk Live. “Our hope, and certainly it will be a message from me to the league soon, is that given all of the recantations and all of the contradictions and, as exemplified by the video, all of the things that are clearly not clear, shouldn’t we be taking another hard look about where this investigation failed the commissioner?”
On Monday, the NFL released a horde of evidence gathered during its investigation of the Saints. The evidence included a sheet of paper the league alleges showed a $35,000 prize, with $5,000 donated by Saints interim coach Joe Vitt, specifically, for knocking former Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favreout of the 2010 NFC Championship Game.
The league also showed a video clip in which former Saints defensive end Anthony Hargrovepurportedly said, “Give me the money,” regarding injuring Favre.
In his letter to Goodell, obtained by PFT, Smith said the league’s investigation “has come under question for being unprofessional, unsubstantiated and incomplete.
“In the days since the June 18 hearing, first-hand witnesses to the Saints defensive team meetings who the League actually interviewed, have clearly and publicly stated that the NFL grossly mischaracterized the information they provided to NFL investigators and knowingly misrepresented the facts surrounding this investigation,” Smith wrote.
